


Gold Dust Women

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose discovers something about monsters on the alternate world where she's been left. AU for both the Joss and Who-verses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold Dust Women

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exiledtimelord](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=exiledtimelord).



_"Did she make you cry  
make you break down  
shatter your illusions of love?  
Well is it over now?"_  
\- Fleetwood Mac  
"Gold Dust Woman"

  
"You know, this isn't exactly what I had in mind when I signed up with Torchwood," Rose said to Ianto, looking around the eerie, dark house they'd found themselves in. It showed how low they were on the Torchwood totem pole. They were sent to clean out a recently imported nest of American vampires. Nothing special as far as Torchwood was concerned. The recent flux of Americans crossing the Atlantic was something for Torchwood One to sort out. They were just the foot soldiers.

For not the first time, not the last, and somewhere near the millionth, Rose wished for the Doctor and held out hope that somewhere in this universe, there was a Doctor that would come find her. Or that her own would do more than burn up stars to talk to her, but burn up a few to get her back.

Ianto shrugged. "At least Lisa escaped safely."

Rose smirked at him. "You and Lisa, you've got what? An arrangement or something."

"Or something," Ianto replied with a brief smile. "She likes the way I do coffee."

Rose couldn't help but laugh as they scanned around, weapons drawn, making a slow progression into a darkened study. The door opened with a rusty groan and Ianto politely gestured for her to go first. She entered smoothly, cross stepping and keeping close to the walls as Ianto followed her in.

Then something rustled in the dark. Rose raised her wooden stake high and took a step back. A pale, beautiful face emerged from the darkness, with a black lipstick smile and red hair.

"Look, it's a blonde girl with a stake. I've seen this before," said the pale vampire with the red hair said, with a smirk.

Rose swallowed her fear hard and said, "Rose Tyler, Torchwood. We've been authorized to destroy you if you don't vacate these premises immediately."

"Bored now."

Rose saw the leather-clad blur and the self-assured smile of a victorious predator before she passed into darkness, head slammed against the wall. She even heard the wood-on-wood sound of her stake rolling away from her hand, across the floor. She did not hear Ianto's last screams.

She woke up in chains, in a luxurious, candle-lit bedroom. The same smile greeted her upon returning to consciousness. For an instant, she thought she had only blacked out for a moment. When her hand jerked to reach for her stake, expecting to find it near, chains rattled and she could not raise her a.

With air coming in gulps, she wriggled and kicked, but the chains were solid and heavy. She drew herself up as much as the binding iron allowed. "You're makin' a big mistake. The people I work for-"

The red haired vampire cocked her head a little and straddled Rose's hips. Her expression was sleepy and sated, perhaps even stoned. Did vampires get stoned? "Shh, shh, now. Hush. Don't ruin the mood."

"Where's Ianto? If you've killed him, I swear -"

The vampire grabbed her by the jaw. "I don't like it when you swear. Swearing's naughty. You shouldn't. It upsets me. You're Willow's baby now. Willow's babies don't swear. Mama's gonna teach you better than that."

Rose lifted her hips and swung her arms around as much as she could. Willow laughed, raised up and then pinned Rose's arms to the headboard. Her thighs clamped down around Rose's waist and she straightened up, lifting her head high with a smoky, devastating chuckle. The sound of it made every muscle in her body freeze solid, paralyzing her right there. There was a time, once, when Rose could have the confidence that she would not die. That the Doctor was somewhere, a beautiful smiling god who looked after her and could outsmart any monster that dared to set it's sights on her.

This world, however, was different. There was no Doctor, only the monsters.

"All right then, you gonna eat me. Get on with it," Rose said, swallowing hard and closing her eyes. She was hoping for a better death, but it was better than getting old and dying maybe, being forced to live out decades without the Doctor.

Rose could admit to herself now, in these last moments, that she had joined Torchwood looking for a suitable blaze of glory to go out in. Something to make mum and Mickey and dad proud. Because a year in and Rose now knew that that dad was not her dad, that the dad that was hers was really dead and that she couldn't touch Mickey without trying to pretend he was the Doctor.

There was a ghastly cold gust of air on her neck, the vampire equivalent of breath and a terrible mockery of it. Rose shuddered.

"Oh, you're so pretty. Be a shame to waste all this on the worms. If you're good to mama, mama will be good to you," Willow purred.

Rose looked up suddenly to see the raised flesh on Willow's face and the fangs, the moon-yellow eyes staring at her.

"What d'ya want?" Rose asked in a shivering voice. "What y'waiting for?"

Willow smiled and stroked her hair softly. "Us girls should stick together. Have girl time. I'm all alone. The boys never stay. I don't want to be alone anymore. Do you know what it's like when your best friend leaves you? Just up and goes. We were supposed to be forever, Xander and me. I did everything he ever wanted, but it wasn't enough."

Rose stopped shivering at that moment, and though the monster in front of her was terrifying, she understood something in the bile-yellow gaze. Torchwood's briefing said these were soulless monsters, capable of anything and bereft of feeling - but now she saw how oversimplified that was, how wrong. Who was to say what a soul was, or what feelings counted? Maybe the Doctor was no more human than this thing in front of her. He always talked to the creatures he came across, never judged. Never said what they should and shouldn't be.

Before her, Rose saw something she understood well. Why not see where it lead? Why judge? It wasn't as if fighting was going to get her anywhere and maybe, there was something more to these vampires. Rose lifted her chin and kissed Willow so fast that her fangs slipped and knicked Rose's bottom lip. Willow readily licked the blood and kissed down to her vein.

"I know what that's like," Rose whispered.

"Aww, baby, you too? What happened?"

"He thought of everything, even how to say goodbye, but now how to keep us together. He let go. He did it on purpose. He let go."

"Shh, now. Just you hush. Willow's never gonna let you go."

The bite was worse and better than Rose expected, and so was the blood from Willow's breast, given like mother's milk. It put her in the ground, delirious and regretting every moment, begging in those last seconds that a blue box might appear and save her from her own bad decision making. Willow said later that those were the death throes of a soul, and the bruises would heal. Eventually she would come to see them in the way she would see limbs twitching out the last moments of life. A nuisance at best.

Three nights later, Rose brushed the dirt from herself and saw the night with daylight clarity. Pale hands intertwined in the night. No longer did she want the blue box. She remembered, mathematically that it had been important to her but there was only a hollow spot where all that pain had been. No more blue box to wait for. No more blue eyes to long for.

Deliciously and devastatingly free, the only color Rose could only think of was red, red, red. Blood and soft hair and lipsticked lips, that was all that mattered. _I'm a red, red Rose_, she thought to herself, as she knocked Willow to the ground, so hungry for blood, for that soft breast once more. Red, red Rose. Red, red, red.

  
-END-


End file.
